


the weather outside is frightful

by Luddleston



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Christmas Movies, Fluff, M/M, Platonic Cuddling, Pre-Relationship, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-28 22:50:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17191760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luddleston/pseuds/Luddleston
Summary: Lance has just finished his first semester of college, and is ready to head home for winter break--except, the weather isn't cooperating. With a blizzard raging outside, all students are advised to stay off the roads, which means Lance is stuck hanging out with his roommate for an extra day and a half while they wait for the skies to clear.He's prepared to be bored out of his mind, but then he finds out Keith hasn't seen a single Christmas movie in his life. And, well, Lance has to fix that.





	the weather outside is frightful

**Author's Note:**

> vld secret santa gift for @dazagy on tumblr!

Lance peeked out the window, cringing, because the snowfall outside was now well and truly a blizzard. He sighed, slumping back into the couch. He'd finished his first college finals week, survived the study groups and the all-nighters and the weird tradition his school participated in where everybody walked outside at midnight the day before finals began and screamed for a minute straight. College was weird. 

Even after making it through all of that, he wasn't allowed the sweet release of winter break, the joy of getting to see his family for the first time since Thanksgiving, the wonderfulness of sleeping in a bed that wasn't in a dorm room. 

All because of this stupid blizzard. 

The school had used its mass texting system to inform the students that, due to inclement weather, no one was advised to drive anywhere for the next two days. That was _two days_ of sitting around bored in his dorm, scrounging up what he could in the kitchens or hoping the bus was running so he could grab himself a pizza. 

And, two more days hanging out with his roommate, Keith. 

Alright, so, Keith wasn't totally a bad dude. It had taken Lance like half a semester to convince himself of this, but Keith was pretty chill, and had absolutely saved Lance's butt helping him figure out calculus on the days Professor Smythe made literally no sense. And sure, his hair got stuck in the shower drain all the time and he had that annoying habit of walking around the room in his boxers at whatever hour of the day he finally decided to wake up, but he wasn't totally a bad dude.

Currently, Keith was chilling on the top bunk of their beds, his usual place of residence, watching weather reports without headphones in, so Lance had to listen to people talk about the blizzard as he watched it pile up outside, covering the bushes on the quad so thoroughly it all just looked like one blank field of white. 

"It looks like we should be able to leave tomorrow," Keith said. "It's supposed to stop at like 6 A.M., so they should have the roads plowed enough to get out of the city by about… noon?" 

Lance groaned and flopped onto his side on the couch. "I don't wanna be snowed in," he complained, kicking his feet like it'd actually get him anywhere. He was supposed to be finally seeing Hunk again! They were gonna have movie night, and Hunk was gonna bake white chocolate macadamia cookies and it was gonna be awesome. And then the weather had to go and keep Lance right where he was at. Staring at a cinderblock wall covered in posters of obscure bands Keith liked, illuminated by Christmas lights Lance had strung up all over the place in an attempt at making it more festive. 

"This sucks," Lance continued. "I should be watching Christmas movies with my best friend right now." 

He heard some rustling from Keith's bed, followed by the creaking of the ladder that meant Keith was hopping down. He used to just jump off halfway down, but the people below them left a nasty note on their door. 

"Aren't Christmas movies all terrible?" Keith asked, rifling through the drawer where he kept his snacks. 

"No, are you serious!? They're great!" Lance protested, hopping off the couch, ready to defend the classics. "What do you know, anyway?" 

"Not much," Keith said, which was the only time Lance had ever heard him admit that.

"Really?" 

Keith shrugged, coming away from the cabinet with a packet of ramen noodles. "I never really watched any of them," he said. "My dad's house didn't have a TV. And I didn't really watch TV or movies or anything at any of the foster homes, so." 

The usual pang in Lance's chest whenever Keith talked about his childhood was back and aching. Keith was pretty open about that kind of stuff now, like the first time he stopped being cagey and told Lance that he'd had a tough time as a kid because his mom was out of the picture and his dad died when he was six, it had unlocked everything. Lance supposed Keith just figured if Lance knew that, it didn't matter that he knew Keith hadn't watched the cheesy Christmas movies Lance loved. Or, that Lance should have intuited it on his own. 

Keith started breaking up the brick of noodles so that they fit in his preferred soup mug, which was enormous and purple and an excellent soup mug. Lance used it when Keith wasn't around. 

"We should watch some tonight," he said. "I'm gonna educate you on good Christmas movies." 

Keith did that thing with his eyebrows that used to make Lance want to strangle him. Now, he knew it meant 'Lance, that might not be a good idea.' And, sometimes, Keith was right. Like that time Lance wanted to jump into the fountain in the center of campus. This time, though, his eyebrows were just plain wrong. 

"No, seriously, get your butt over here. We're gonna chill on the couch and watch Christmas movies 'til we pass out." 

"I'm making noodles," Keith said, indicating his mug full of water and still-mostly-dried noodles, as he transferred it to the microwave. 

"Then _bring your damn noodles,_ Keith!" 

"I… okay, just don't start it 'til I'm done microwaving these." Keith frowned at the microwave, like the numbers would count down faster the grumpier he looked. 

Lance dug through his mini-fridge and found that he still had leftovers of whatever weird rice thing he made on Wednesday, and he waited on the microwave while Keith continued to glare, ignoring him in favor of pulling up Netflix and scrolling through their conveniently-labeled holiday section. 

"We're watching Rudolph!" he announced, over the beeping of the microwave. 

"Okay?" Keith set his mug on the corner of the sink while he stirred his noodles, letting Lance take over the microwave. 

Once both of them had food in hand, Lance started the movie, listening the familiar opening narration from the snowman, watching baby Rudolph's nose light up red. Keith pretended to look bored at first, but he didn't have his phone out, and was eating slowly enough that he didn't miss anything on screen, and Lance just _knew_ he was loving it. 

The movie was so familiar that Lance could quote almost all of it, so he let himself relax as soon as he was done eating, leaning back onto the couch, the stress of finals draining slowly, but surely, from his body. There was a clink as Keith set down his giant soup mug, and then Lance had to sit forward for a second because Keith was pulling the blanket they had slung over the back of the couch off so he could lay it on top of himself. He only made a little grunt of protest when Lance grabbed the end of the blanket to share it with him, but scooted closer so he was only giving up the smallest portion of the blanket possible. 

"See? It's a good movie," Lance said, as the protagonists reached the island of misfit toys. 

"Hm." 

Lance liked to think that was all he got out of Keith because he was so focused on the movie, but in actuality, Keith looked like he was about to drift off, the blanket pulled up to his chin, his head lolling onto his shoulder. 

It was a travesty. 

"Hey! You're missing the movie!" 

Keith jumped like Lance had actually woken him up, but Lance couldn't find it in himself to feel too bad for him, not when Keith had pulled that all-nighter last weekend and had his overhead lights on, effectively making it impossible for Lance to sleep, even with his mask on.

"...what?" Keith said, and then shook his head, like he'd finally realized what Lance was screeching at him about. "God, lay off, I just finished finals. I'm tired. Why aren't _you_ tired?" 

"I drank a bunch of coffee because I thought I was gonna have to drive home this afternoon," Lance explained. "I've been, like, wired. All day." 

"Oh. That explains it," Keith said. On-screen, Rudolph and co. were nearing the lair of the abominable snowman. 

"We don't have to watch another one after this, if you wanna go to sleep," Lance said, his voice pitched low so as not to talk over the climax, which, looking at it now, was way weirder than he'd remembered. He couldn't think of many Christmas movies that had dentistry-based solutions. 

"No, no, it's cool," Keith said. "I wanna watch the Grinch." 

"We're watching the old animated one, I hope you know. I'm a purist." 

Lance wasn't sure if he was imagining things, or if Keith was actually moving closer, and by the times their shoulders brushed, he couldn't remember if Keith had just been there the whole time. Lance pulled the blanket up to his shoulder and shifted, and it pushed them even closer together, Keith's arm going around Lance's shoulders so it wasn't crushed between them. Keith kicked his feet up onto the storage ottoman Lance's were resting on, his boring black socks making Lance's Christmas-tree-printed ones stand out even more. 

As "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" blasted over their TV's mediocre speakers, Lance looked over and caught a smile on Keith's face. It was a rare expression for him, the kind of thing Lance only ever saw when Hunk made Keith dessert or Pidge managed to make him laugh with some meme. Now, in the soft glow of the Christmas lights and the TV screen, it looked like something even more rare, more precious. The kind of thing that made Lance want to hold onto him and never let go. 

He settled for relaxing more fully against Keith, his head resting just barely on Keith's shoulder, cautious enough that he could pass it off as _definitely not snuggling_ if Keith asked. Keith was nowhere near as subtle, resting his head on top of Lance's, relaxing against him. It seemed easy, natural, like Keith did this kind of thing all the time, even though Lance knew he wasn't the touchy-feely type of person. Lance squinted at him, wishing he could read his mind, know what the hell Keith was thinking. 

Eh. Even if he could read Keith's mind, he probably wouldn't be able to figure out what the hell he was actually thinking. 

"Going to sleep after this one?" Keith asked, and Lance shook his head. 

"You can, if you want. I'm watching Home Alone." 

Keith thought for a moment, grumbling something unintelligible. "Alright, fine, I'll stay up," he said, eventually. 

It didn't work. He fell asleep on Lance's shoulder before the bandits even got inside the house. 

The snow continued to fall outside, and Lance may not have been home, but he decided this was pretty alright, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Visit me on tumblr, twitter, or pillowfort @luddlestons!


End file.
